


always you, definitely you

by Apalapucian, bulletproofboys



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era, Modern Marauders (Harry Potter), Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:12:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apalapucian/pseuds/Apalapucian, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulletproofboys/pseuds/bulletproofboys
Summary: so. they're at that perpetually open arcade place, 3 AM for reasons that can only be blanketed by the fact that he’s james and she’s lily and that’s just how things turn out for them most of the time. she's cursing at those stuffed-toy clamp machine things, swearing that they're broken - deliberately, all of them - because they’ve been trying fortwo whole hoursand have wasted too much money andstill no flareon plushie- when he just, in between scandalously slurping the smoothie he bought from the convenience store right outside, super casually asks, “hey, lil - wanna move in with me?”





	always you, definitely you

**Author's Note:**

> first off: i accidentally imported this to my bts account lmao i'm sorry. so i'm just. adding apalapucian like the lazy amateur i am. i mean this is me also jayne i'm just an idiot.
> 
> anyway, i dreamed of yoongi the other day and i legit didn’t want to wake up. that may have inspired this. belated happy birthday, morgan! the pac rim au / a chapter of ha7 was going to be your gift, but here’s a finished story, and i hope it makes you smile. the others will still be yours when they’re done. love you always. (i was going to call this ‘you are my starlight’, after taeyeon and dean, but i remembered i already have a fic called starlight, after taylor, and - eh. then ‘crystal snow’ came on shuffle halfway through writing this. then ‘even if i die, it’s you’, right after that. hence the title.)
> 
> this will be on ffn as well when i find the time to edit the capitalization. meanwhile, here's the lowercase version for here.
> 
> happy reading, comments are life xx

so. yes. she’s saying _yes_. she hasn’t yet at the moment, but she knows for sure now. she’s going to.

she should just have said yes two weeks ago anyway, when he asked. they were at that perpetually open arcade place, 3 AM for reasons that could only be blanketed by the fact that he’s james and she’s lily and that’s just how things turn out for them most of the time. she was cursing at those stuffed-toy clamp machine things, swearing that they were broken - deliberately, all of them - because they’d been trying for _two whole hours_ and had wasted too much money and still _no flareon plushie_ \- when he just, in between scandalously slurping the smoothie he bought from the convenience store right outside, super casually asked, “hey, lil - wanna move in with me?”

she shouldn’t have been surprised. sure, it’d only been a week or so then since his last roommate left, but she’s _always_ around his place, almost embarrassingly so, that she practically already lives there. 

(sirius left four weeks ago. he and reg finally found an apartment. paid the downpayment, got basic furniture essentials, moved most of their stuff in. it wasn’t much, the new place. certainly nothing compared to the estate that sirius decidedly left years ago at sixteen, to what regulus left more recently. but they were together, _finally,_ sirius and regulus _,_ after a complicated years-worth tug of war that involved too many fist fights and rooftop heart-to-hearts and unsent letters. not to mention their new home was right on top of their favorite asian buffet place. win win. they all helped look for the place, but it was remus who found it. james was sad to let sirius go. _sirius_ was sad to let sirius go. reluctant, at first, almost bailing, and he did tell them that. but regulus was family - _you’re family too, prongs_ , sirius was quick to correct, _fuck, you’re family too, james, okay? you_ are _. and i love you. love. you. seriously. can’t stress that enough_. he was slightly drunk then, you see. but regulus was _regulus,_ and they all know it. and sirius missed him. a lot. he’d never say. but they all know that, too.)

“like, officially?” asked lily, rather dumbly. of _course_ officially. what else-ally?

“yeah. with your things and everything. you already have keys.”

“ah.” still rather dumbly. she doesn’t know why she didn’t just say yes. maybe because it would mean their family house would be emptied for good if she left, now that petunia’s gone and moved in with that bullfrog of a person vernon. “hmm.”

“no pressure.” and he sounded it. he didn’t seem bothered at all that lily wasn’t jumping in excitement at the proposal. “just something to think about.”

“i do always sleep there anyways,” she said, more to herself than anything.

“yeah,” said james, distracted, eyes narrowed in concentration as he maneuvered the machine levers. lily took the smoothie from him so he could use both his hands, sipped from the same straw, made the same scandalously loud sounds. there was hardly anything left of it. flareon dropped for the thousandth time that night - morning, whatever - and disappeared in the sea of now-annoying as hell colors. james threw his hands up in surrender. “it’s broken. it is. i swear. this whole place is a scam.”

“you drank all of it,” said lily, handing him back the empty plastic cup.

“you said you didn’t want any,” he accused back. “i said we should buy two, because you always end up wanting some anyway, but _no_ , you were like - no, james, i really don’t want some tonight.”

“shut up.” but she was laughing.

 

—

 

she knows she’ll say yes for sure when she finds him outside when her shift ends, and, yeah, he’s always there _,_ but it’s been a while since she’s properly appreciated it. she knows because _yes_ just suddenly sits sure and content on her tongue at the sight of him, because her heart skips when he jumps off the high cement balusters enclosing the kids’ playground across lily’s building, the one with the sign not five yards away that says “no sitting”. _that sign’s for the kids, lil,_ he always told her, _and besides i haven’t fallen once - sirius pushing me does_ not _count._ he’s in his faded gryffindor hoodie and his hair is stuck at 6 AM and it’s hot as hell. he has two chuckskates iced whites, a giant sea salt chocolate chip cookie, and _all_ of lily’s heart. truly.

she grins and skips to him like some kindergartener.

“where’s yours?” she asks, taking her cookie, relishing in the first sip of coffee. actually her third today now, but coffee is all day round. it is. in fact, there’s an aesthetic neon sign that says exactly that, installed in the flat - _their_ flat, soon - a gift from remus a couple of birthdays ago.

“you took so long,” he says. “i already ate it.”

“how dare you have dinner without me.”

“how dare you assume this is dinner.”

she takes a bite of the pastry and hands it to him. he takes it, munches on, and holds her hand. natural. easy. she feels so happy with him, and nothing’s even technically happening. she’s so stupidly in love. she’s not sure why she’s especially aware today.

“how was work?” he asks.

“slow. nothing eventful. how was yours?”

“same. do you have extras this week?”

“no, why?”

“i’m swinging by the bookshop to see remus. wanna come with?”

“sure.”

 

—

 

she knows when they get stuck in the bookshop when it starts to rain, and they find that they both forgot their umbrellas at home. remus thinks they’re both idiots. they agree that it’s still too impractical to book or hail a ride though, because james’s flat is only a ten-minute walk away, and the rain will stop soon. it will. they can rummage through the lost and found section for unclaimed umbrellas, but they decide to stay and help remus arrange the books in the young adult section instead. it’s always the first to get disorganized. remus rightly takes back the idiot remark.

james picks up a hardbound gardening book that someone just irresponsibly lodged in there, flips the glossy pages, finds the chapter about climbers. calls lily’s name, points at a picture of a brick wall of yellow roses - her favorite - and smiles.

“you’re making me that,” says lily.

“marry me first.”

“done.”

james closes the book in place of banging a gavel, and they return to their devices.

remus frowns at them. “did you just - did you really just get engaged right now?”

lily laughs. “he asks me that twice a week. we’ve probably been engaged a hundred times.”

“ _she_ asks me that thrice a week,” says james.

“i always say yes.”

“one time i said no and she cried,” reveals james, not even looking their way.

“traitor. i was _drunk_.”

james shrugs. “it happened.”

“i’m taking back me taking it back,” says remus. “you _are_ both idiots.”

 

—

 

sirius gets wind of and promptly whinges at the three of them being in the bookshop sans - his own words - his most noble presence, and thirty minutes later the doorchimes sound his arrival. he has a sheepish regulus in tow. 

sirius is wearing the exact same hoodie as james, and they roll their eyes at each other upon seeing. regulus sits on remus’s stool behind the desk, silently looking ‘round at them work (and bicker and laugh); a shy, almost wistful look on his face.

lily feels _yes_ stir again when james finds another lost book in his stack - flatland, edwin abbott abbott _-_ and calls, “hey, isn’t this your favorite, reg?”

regulus looks up, startled at being addressed, at the sudden attention of all three elders present, his gaze frantically flitting from one to another. but then he sees the book in james’s hand and lightens up, because, yes, it’s his favorite. even lily knows. “yeah. er, how’d you know?”

james frowns. “padfoot’s been - ”

“he doesn’t have them yet,” sirius cuts in. easily, but quieter than usual, and lily finds a hint of blush in his ears.

“ _what,”_ says james. he turns to regulus again. “your obviously whipped brother’s been buying a different version of flatland on your birthday for the last, like, five years.”

sirius sighs. he carries on organizing his stack of books in silence.

regulus’s eyes widen. he turns to sirius. “really?”

“yep,” confirms remus, smiling at him. kind of proudly, fondly, but lily doesn’t think remus is aware that he’s smiling like that. “the other year he went to an auction for a limited edition. an _auction,_ reg.a real scary underground one. he wore a suit  _and_ fucking dragged us along.”

“scary? last year _we_ went to a really shady neighborhood to buy it from a really shady dude who lived in a really shady house,” adds lily. “i was sure i was going to die.”

(there was also a year when peter was with them. it was peter’s evil great aunt who had the edition sirius wanted that year. lily thinks the others remember too - the disaster of a blind date that they set up for the vile woman, remus’s earphones ending up in the ramen, the flying shoes, how it ended up with them _stealing_ the goddamn copy. they’re remembering too, right now. they must be. but she doesn’t say. no one does. they don’t talk about peter anymore.)

“you’re making it sound like it’s a big deal,” says sirius, determined to stick to nonchalance. 

“it is,” says regulus hurriedly, jumping off the stool in his earnest. “it _is_ a big deal, sirius. i - do you still have them?”

“’course. they’re in one of the boxes still at prongs’s.”

“can we go get them?”

“nah, i’ll bring them along on saturday,” james tells him. “now you come help here. or else you’re paying for dinner on the next movie night.”

regulus joins them, goes straight to help sirius with his stack. he’s smiling now, shoulders less hunched. he looks lost among them less and laughs with them more.

 

—

 

lily knows when they’re home, later - when did she start calling it home? _why_ didn’t she just say yes that night? - and she’s sat on the floor leaning on the side of the bed, feeling james look at her laptop screen over her shoulder. the lights are off now, besides the pink _coffee is all day round_ neon sign and lily’s laptop. he’s already tucked in bed, albeit on his stomach right now to peek at her work, blanket wrapped around him. it’s raining again. he starts braiding a section of her hair.

“wow, he _dies_?” he says at some point.

lily keeps typing. she doesn’t mind him watching her write. he’s probably the only person in the world. “i’m just writing this down,” she tells him. “i’m writing two versions. possibly three. nothing’s final yet.”

“you can’t kill him off,” says james. “i _love_ him, what the fuck?”

lily smiles. “it’s not final yet.”

“still, it’s right there, it’s a possibility.” he pokes her cheek. “evans. _please_ don’t kill my favorite character off.”

she turns her head and kisses him on the lips. quick. just once. “shush.”

“i won’t _shush,_ miss, _”_ he says, burying his head in her neck. “i will cry. seriously.”

“i’ll fix it right away when you do.” (she thinks she can live with this stupid butterflies in her stomach thing forever, really.)

“ _when_ i do, she says. _when_ , not _if_. ‘not final’ my ass.”

she laughs. “james, your glasses tickle.”

she can feel him smile against her skin, but he withdraws. he doesn’t press when she’s working on this. her big story. the novel she dreams to see published someday, perhaps displayed at the bookshop remus works at.

she fills three more pages when she notices that he hasn’t said anything in a while, and that his hand has stilled on her hair. she turns to check - and he’s so, so unexpectedly close, and _sleeping_ , and his mouth is slightly open and his face is as at rest as it can be and his lashes are so long and delicate under his glasses, and it’s - it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, this, him, in the whole _galaxy_ , all schmaltz be bloody fucking damned. the pink light is soft on his features, almost like it’s sentient, like it’s being careful of him. as it should be. as anything and anyone should be.

it’s still raining. james is a real life ortonish photo that’s just a breath away. lily suddenly wants to cry. she _does_ tear up a bit. it’s crazy. she’s crazy. 

it’s just - 

she’s so so _so_ in love with him, and she’s really not sure why she’s so aware of it today. she saves the file, closes the laptop, slides it under the bed.

 _yes._ she knows. it’s always been a yes. 

when she gently takes his glasses off, he shifts.

“you’re lying sideways,” lily whispers. sniffs discreetly. “your feet are dangling.”

“s’fine,” he whispers back, voice hoarse, eyes not opening. “come sleep.”

she climbs on the bed - sideways on it with him, too short for her feet to dangle like his do - tucks herself in the same blanket. sighs when he slings an arm around her.

“hey,” she says tentatively. she’s facing the other way, so she can’t see him.

he sleepily hums against the back of her neck.

“help me pack tomorrow after shift?”

“where you goin’?”

“here.”

he holds her tighter, feels him smile against her skin again. “’kay.”

“good night,” she says, closing her eyes now too. “dream of me.”

“don’t need to anymore,” he says.

 

—

 

~~(james knows when -~~

~~well, i mean, who’s he kidding. he’s always known.)~~


End file.
